May 20, 2024
JAKARTA – Living in a small alley near Duri Station in Tambora, West Jakarta, Nur Walidah, 37, prefers to sit outside her house, along with other mothers, while nurturing her four-year-old daughter.
Nur lives with their two daughters in her husband’s childhood house, which is 15 square meters in total area. The bedroom and living room are divided by two cupboards, while the bathroom door is simply a curtain.
Her husband, Hendra, 43, works odd jobs, mainly as a motorcycle mechanic, after being laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On April 17, two people came to Hendra’s house to fix a motorcycle. The customers sat at the front of the house, as Hendra’s 3 sq m living room could only fit two to three people. People living in jam-packed areas prefer to open their doors all day or sit outside of their houses to get fresh air.
“Do you know why my father made a gap between these two cupboards? It is to look out if somebody arrives at the door,” Hendra’s four-year-old daughter, Anin, chirped.
Living in a densely populated area, Nur and Hendra are aware that their neighborhood is prone to fire and theft.
Born and raised in Tambora, Hendra has experienced three fires, the most recent of which burned down his house in 2009. During the fire, Hendra was working while his wife was looking after their three-month-old first child.
“I didn’t even think of saving anything, just quickly grabbed the baby and ran,” Nur told The Jakarta Post on April 17.
The fire burned down 200 houses. The Tambora sub-district administration provided emergency tents, health posts and soup kitchens in Kalianyar, near Jembatan Besi.
Read also: Hundreds seek shelter as fires destroy houses in West Jakarta
However, many families in the neighborhood chose to stay by their burned houses as they feared someone might steal metal or other items left over from the fire.
To prevent such accidents from recurring, Hendra forbids his children to play with fireworks or anything that could cause a fire. In his neighborhood, fire extinguishers and hydrants are available in case a fire breaks out.
Densely populated
Tambora is notorious as the most densely populated area in Southeast Asia, with a total of 270,125 residents living in 5.4 square kilometers. More than 36,000 people live in Jembatan Besi, which covers an area of 0.55 sq km, according to Statistics Indonesia in 2022.
The Jakarta Civil Registration Agency head Budi Awaluddin told the Post that more than 11 million people reside in Jakarta, with an average population of 17 people for every sq m.
“The population will likely increase with rapid population mobility. If the issue is not well-managed, living in Jakarta will become uncomfortable for its residents,” Budi said.
With Jakarta’s dense population, people are unable to afford a decent place to live, even though it is essential for their health. Crowded settlements are closely related to slums and poverty.
According to the Health Ministry, a healthy home is measured as a minimum of 8 sq m per household member. It also must meet several requirements, such as adequate rooms for eating, sleeping, bathing, cooking and washing, so each family member feels comfortable living in it.
This means that if a house’s space is limited, maintaining the health of residents and public health in the neighborhood will be challenging.
An adequate house should have an area of 7.2 sq m per household member, according to the Public Works and Housing Ministry.
In West Jakarta, 22.33 percent of households live in homes of less than 7.2 sq m, and the percentage of uninhabitable houses in Central and North Jakarta amounts to more than 25 percent.
“As their houses are small, some people need to take shifts to sleep while others have to sleep with their legs crossed,” Retno Sulistyaningrum, head of the settlement sector at the Jakarta Housing Agency, told the Post on April 19.
Vertical residence
Retno said there are 11 variables to categorize a slum area, including population density, poor ventilation and lighting and building density, adding that Jembatan Besi is considered a severe slum area.
Read also: Jembatan Besi fire destroys 32 houses, injuring three
To overcome the problem, the Jakarta Housing Agency renovated and rearranged residential areas and relocated people living in slums, following the 2018 Public Works and Housing Ministerial Regulation on the prevention and quality improvement of slum housing and settlements and the 2011 Law on housing and settlement areas.
“Improving slum areas is a long process, as people mostly reject the idea of vertical housing. So we carry out the housing improvements in places where the people welcome the idea, such as recently in Tanah Tinggi [Johar Baru, Central Jakarta],” she said.
In 2017, more than 400 Jakarta community units (RW) were classed as slums. As of 2022, the Jakarta administration has reduced the number of slum RW to 225. In total, there are more than 2,700 RW in Jakarta.
“The Jakarta administration basically wants its citizens to live in adequate houses. It is the local administration’s responsibility,” she said.